The Heart of Matter: Odyssey One (57 page)

To do that took time, care, and precise calculations. Unfortunately, she was quite aware that the
Cerekus
wanted to be elsewhere, and the big ship’s captain was quite eager to see this job done in a hurry. With less time, she fully intended to make up for it with more of the other two, because that was the way she did her job.

They matched pace with the comet, taking careful scans to determine whether it had any fault lines that might cause it to break up. It did, of course, so then it became a matter of making certain that they could control the breakup and keep the pieces within the sphere of effect of their beams. Once all the math was complete, Marjir ordered that the overpowered tractor ship bring its beams to full strength and englobe the falling comet.

With the big chunk of dirt and ice solidly locked in their field, the crew of the tractor slowly began to reverse thrust. Changing the course of something as massive as a comet wasn’t exactly a casual maneuver, not even with the power and technology the Priminae commanded, but it had become routine a long time previously. As they confirmed that the comet wasn’t breaking apart, the crew of the tractor continued to
add more and more thrust to the mass, and slowly, it began to have a perceptible effect.

It wouldn’t take much, not this far out, to keep the comet from striking the planet, but as long as they were doing the work anyway, the orders were to deliver it to a stable orbit. This was for several reasons, including the fact that they didn’t want it in any unpredictable orbit that might later threaten the planet once more, or another installation, but they also wanted to be able to recover the ice and minerals later, if needed.

As they pulled back, however, Marjir and her crew were surprised to hear a sudden echoing bang reverberate through the small tractor.

“What was that?” the ithan demanded, spinning around as she looked to all the stations around her.

“Unknown. We were struck by something.”

“That’s not possible,” she said. “Our screens would have blocked anything like that.”

“Agreed. However, we were struck by something,” the crewman said again, poring over his instruments.

“It must have been internal,” Marjir countered, adamant. “Check the drive status.”

“Ithan, it was an external strike. I am certain.”

Marjir got up and walked over to his station, leaning over the crewman. “Our screens show full integrity?”

“They do.”

“Well, then nothing could have hit us. It has to be internal.”

“Ithan, there were no harmonics within the ship. It was a shallow strike on our hull.”

She grimaced. “Turn on the exterior imagers.”

“Yes, Ithan.”

The imagers covered the hull for situations when the screens were down and a strike was a possibility. It was important to be able to check the armor of the tractor by eye, just to make certain that they wouldn’t be risking anything by engaging their beams. The first few images flickered by with nothing unexpected; the hull was intact and there were none of the subtle markers that might show dangerous degradation. Almost halfway through the cycle, however, Marjir’s breath hissed as she spotted a decidedly foreign body on the side of her ship.

“What the hell is that?”

The crewman paled, punching in computer commands faster than she could follow. A few seconds later, the computer ID came back, and she found herself rapidly blanching to match her subordinate.

“Drasin,” she whispered. “But…how?”

Her mind locked up for a few interminable seconds, probably the most vital seconds of her life, and by the time she managed to snap herself free again, it was too late.

“It’s cutting through the hull!” the crewman yelped, stunned almost as completely as his commander.

Under normal circumstances, on most ships, the few bare seconds of disbelief would have been a minor fault at most. On the tiny tractor, however, by the time either of them managed to regain control of their faculties, a hiss of escaping air erupted into a whirlwind of destruction.

Normally, explosive decompression was very much slanted to the second word and not so much the first. However, in a small environment like the tug, which only had minimal gravity generators, the sudden venting of atmosphere turned the inside into a whirlwind of destruction. Marjir was torn from
her feet and thrown toward the widening hole in the side of the ship.

She had just enough time to scream before a slash of the Drasin’s cutter bisected her torso.

Marjir’s remains, already freezing in the cold of space, were blown clear of the ship as the Drasin pulled itself in and turned its focus on the remaining crew of the small tractor.

The remaining crew had time to scream, but against the howling wind and the suddenly overworked atmosphere generators, it did little good. The crewman Marjir had been arguing with lunged for his panel, slapping the emergency panel and literally throwing open every connection there, with no eye as to what he was doing. Alarms went off as the ship systems tried to compensate for the problems, but on a ship that small, there was only so much they could do.

The Drasin rampaged across the deck for a few more seconds, only stopping when everyone was dead. Primary goals accomplished, the soldier drone paused briefly as it analyzed its environs before turning to the controls and beginning the second phase of the plan.

RANQUIL SYSTEM, CEREKUS

▸ON BOARD THE
Cerekus
, Captain Tianne found herself more than a little bored with the current assignment. With the massive sensor arrays at her disposal, she was confident that there were no Drasin ships within the system, unless they were hiding behind the Primary or one of the gas giants. As neither of those were anywhere near their current position, it seemed terribly wasteful to have the
Cerekus
stationed there to monitor a single tractor.

She felt that way right up until the alarms went off, startling everyone on the ship from their complacency.

Tianne bolted for the command deck, men and women following suit as they headed for their own stations, the same question on their minds as was on their captain’s.

What in the Breaker is going on?

She burst onto the command deck in time to see the tractor ship reeling on the screen, venting gasses from a gaping hole in its side.

“What happened?”

“Unknown. Tractor vessel initiated hull breach response, but there has been no contact with the crew.”

Tianne glared at the screen, mostly to keep from glaring at the crewman who she knew was faultless but was still reporting horrid news.

“Scans. Full spectrum,” she ordered. “Analyze the tractor ship.”

“Yes, Captain.”

The
Cerekus
threw every detection system it had at the smaller ship, responding with the results in just a few seconds.

“No”—the crewman swallowed—“no life, ma’am.”

“Damn it. Download their logs. Find out what the hell happened.”

“Yes, Captain.”

She again found herself glaring at the screens, including the long and midrange scans. She almost wanted them to show a Drasin ship somewhere in the vicinity. At least that would have made sense! Instead, they were all clean and quiet, with no hint at the cause of the current emergency.

“Computer refuses access, Captain!”

“What?” Tianne’s head snapped around, this time her glare clearly focused on the crewman handling the interface systems. “Do it again.”

The crewman blanched, but did as ordered while the captain approached and watched over his shoulder. The results were the same, however, as the computer flashed a standard
Access Denied
message and went merrily about its way.

“Impossible.” Tianne leaned over the crewman, punching in her own access code.

Access Denied.

Simply not possible. There wasn’t a ship in the entire star system, now that the
Odyssey
had left, that would—or could—refuse her codes. Not even within the Forge itself.

“Tractor systems coming back online!” another crewman called out.

“What?” Tianne twisted, again finding herself scowling at the screens.

The small tractor ship was now stabilizing its position, and he could see the gravity well forming on the space-time readings. It was apparently going back to work.

Computer error caused by the accident?
she wondered, frowning as she moved over to the life sciences station.
But no, the
Cerekus
still reads no living people on board. What
is
going on?

“Captain…” The crewman at the sensor stations spoke, this time hesitantly.

“What is it?” Tianne couldn’t quite keep the weary dread from her tone.

There had been too many impossible things, too fast. She could feel herself waiting for the next.

“The tractor is beginning to accelerate the comet.”

Tianne shrugged. “So? That is what we’re here for.”

“It’s plotting a trajectory
toward
Ranquil, Captain.”

Ah, there it is.
She didn’t snap or snarl this time; she just straightened up and walked back over to check the readings for herself. They were indeed aiming the rock at Ranquil, which, to her mind, confirmed that the crew was indeed dead.
So, the Drasin are out here, after all. How did they evade detection?

It was no matter, to be honest, except for the crew of the tractor and their families. Tianne returned to her command station as she mentally catalogued the orders she would need to give.

“Weapons stations to standby,” she ordered as calmly as she could. “Target the tractor.”

There was a hesitation, fleeting, but she noted it and wasn’t surprised. Being ordered to fire on the demons from the dark
was one thing, but Tianne wouldn’t want anyone under her command who’d jump to fire on their own.

“Yes, Captain.”

“Fire.”

The powerful lasers of the immense vessel discharged silently into the black of space, intersecting with the tractor ship almost instantly. It flared brightly on their screens for a brief instant before its hull was overpowered and the small ship simply vanished through laser-induced state change.

“Target destroyed.”

“Deep scan,” she ordered. “I want the entire area probed, crewman. If there’s anything hiding out there, find it.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Tianne sat back, waiting for the results, but didn’t really expect to find anything. Whatever had hit the tractor ship had managed to slip through all their surveys the first time; she didn’t think it would be found now.

They almost had to get an agent on board, but that’s impossible…isn’t it?
Tianne didn’t know how it could have been done, but somehow the attack had managed to redirect the tractor ship’s efforts into hammering Ranquil even harder. That took someone on board changing the computer settings directly, so far as she knew.

The very idea that it might be done from a distance scared her to the core, so Tianne was practically praying that the Drasin had somehow gotten someone or something on the ship as the gaping hole in its hull would seem to indicate. The alternative was honestly too terrible to consider.

“All scans show clear, Captain.”